10 notable stats from Miami Hurricanes’ Cotton Bowl playoff win over Ohio State
The No. 10 Miami Hurricanes remain alive in the College Football Playoff after a convincing 24-14 win over the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes in a quarterfinal in the Cotton Bowl on Wednesday at AT&T Stadium.
Here are 10 notable stats from the win.
12: The Hurricanes have 12 wins on the season for the first time since 2002, the year they finished as national runners-up.
24: Miami’s 24 points were the most a team has scored on Ohio State this season. No team had scored more than 16 against the Buckeyes.
0: The Hurricanes have held both of their playoff opponents scoreless in the first half.
0: Miami had zero penalties accepted against it, making the Hurricanes the first team in CFP history to not have a penalty in a playoff game.
5: Miami sacked Ohio State quarterback Julian Sayin five times. Akheem Mesidor led the way with two, while Rueben Bain Jr., Marquise Lightfoot and Wesley Bissainthe each had one.
The Hurricanes have logged 46 total sacks this season, with 21 of them coming in the past four games — five at West Virginia, four at Pittsburgh, seven at Texas A&M and five against Ohio State.
2: Keionte Scott returned an interception 72 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter.
For Scott, it was his second interception of the season — both of which he returned for a touchdown. Scott is the first Hurricanes player to return multiple interceptions for a touchdown in the same season since Sean Taylor did it three times in the 2003 season.
The others to do so: Mauirce Sikes in 2002, Ed Reed in both 2001 and 2000, Dexter Seigler in 1992 and Bennie Blades in 1985.
The 72-yard return for a touchdown is the second-longest in CFP history behind a 79-yard return by Georgia’s Kelee Ringo in the national championship game against Alabama on Jan. 10, 2022.
153: Miami totaled 153 rushing yards against Ohio State on Wednesday. The Hurricanes were just the second team to eclipse 150 rushing yards against the Buckeyes this year. Texas had 166 yards against Ohio State in both teams’ season opener. After that, Ohio State had only allowed an average of 77.67 rushing yards per game.
Mark Fletcher Jr. led the way with 90 yards on 19 carries. CharMar “Marty” Brown had another 26 yards on five carries, including a 5-yard touchdown with 55 seconds left to seal the game. Quarterback Carson Beck had 23 rushing yards.
50%: The Hurricanes converted 7 of 14 third-down attempts on Wednesday. Ohio State entered the game holding opponents to a 29.01% conversion rate on third down all season. Only one other team this season had a third-down success rate of at least 50% against Ohio State: Penn State, at 53.33%.
13: Beck at one point completed 13 consecutive passes, a Cotton Bowl record. It broke the previous mark of 10 set by Oklahoma’s Landry Jones against Texas A&M in 2013. Beck finished the game completing 19 of 26 passes for 138 yards and one touchdown.
It also tied the most consecutive completions in any College Football Playoff game. It was most recently done by Ohio State’s Will Howard in last season’s national championship game against Notre Dame.
20: Ohio State’s average starting field position was its 20-yard line, and never did the Buckeyes start better than their own 25. Twice Miami pinned Ohio State inside its 10 with solid punts from Dylan Joyce and keen work from the punt coverage unit.
The Hurricanes, for comparison, on average started at their 27-yard line on their eight full drives (not including the two kneel downs at the end of each half).
This story was originally published January 1, 2026 at 6:30 AM.
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